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West -Arbeit (Western Operations)

Stasi Operations in the Netherlands, 197989
by Beatrice de Graaf [1]
In the year 2000, the case of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who had sued the German Office of the
Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the German Democratic Republic (BStU)
for releasing files concerning his political activities before 1989, invoked new interest in a special category
of victims and collaborators of the Stasi, East Germanys Ministry for State Security (Ministerium fr
StaatssicherheitMfS). This category involved West Germans and other West Europeans who were the
subject of the Stasis West-Arb eit (Western operations). [a]
With the scope of West-Arbeit so broadly defined, the boundaries between foreign
intelligence and domestic policing could not be discerned clearly in Stasi activities.
Several studies of the West-Arbeit have been published. Some historians, for example, Hubertus Knabe,
mentioned the possibility that 20,000 West Germans may have been spies. Official BStU estimates are
much lower, perhaps 3,5006,000 over a period of 40 years. In 1989, 1,500 of them were still operational.
These agents spied on thousands of West German companies, organizations, and citizens, including
Helmut Kohl. They also worked against East Germans who were in contact with the West. [b][2]
For the Stasi, West-Arbeit activities im und nach dem Operationsgeb iet (in and directed to the target
region) were organized not only in geographic terms but in political, organizational, and structural terms.
With the scope of West-Arbeit so broadly defined, the boundaries between foreign intelligence and
domestic policing could not be discerned clearly in Stasi activities.

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Although most of the records of the Stasis Main Directorate for Intelligence (the Hauptverwaltung
AufklrungHVA) have been destroyed, traces of the West-Arbeit can be found in domestic departments
of the MfS. Research into this branch of activities is all the more revealing because the files of the West
German intelligence and security services remain closed.
The West-Arbeit had a direct relationship to the domestic duties of the Stasi, because the enemy against
whom the operations were directed could be located abroad, among foreigners, or within the GDR
population itself. As can be deduced from the training manual of the Stasi, Ha auf den Feind (hatred of
the enemy) was the organizations all encompassing idea.
Established as the counterpart and junior partner of the KGB and staffed with communist veterans like
Erich Mielke, Ernst Wollweber, and Wilhelm Zaisser, the Stasi was a repressive institution from its
beginnings. Because communism was considered the logical and inevitable outcome of history,
shortcomings and conflicts within the system could only be caused by external factors, for example,
saboteurs inspired by the great class enemy in the West.
This definition of the enemy evolved over time, but it was still in place during the neue Ostpolitik of 1970
72 of West-German Chancellor Willy Brandt (196974). Brandts outreach brought the GDR considerable
gains: diplomatic recognition (and thus embassies) in the West, economic treaties, technological imports
(microelectronics, computers), and loans.
The gains also brought new dangers: East Germanys policy of Ab grenzung (the ideological, political and
geographical sealing off of the GDR from the West, in particular from the FRG) began to erode because of
the many contacts with the West established during this period. The increased percolation through the
Wall of Western influences was mirrored by the growth of the Stasi. The shield and sword of the party
had to make up for the new openness with a major expansion of its personnel, informal agents
(inoffizielle mitarb eiter), and duties. At the same time, the Stasi made good use of contacts fostered by
Brandts Ostpolitik and began new offensives against the West. These were directed mainly against West
Germany, but other West European countries, including the Netherlands, also were targetted.
[Top of page]

The Stasis Image of the Enemy, as seen through the Netherlands

Eva Horn (professor of German literature and the theory of espionage) has written that enemy images
are the backbone of intelligence services, but that these images can have negative effects on their
efficiency.[3] With respect to Stasi operations against the Dutch, I will argue that the image of the enemy,
conceived through a Marxist-Leninist perspective, drove Stasi actions with apparent success at a tactical
level. Strategically, however, the Stasi actions failed to prevent the fall of the regime it was charged with
protecting.
In this article, I will investigate what the MfS was after in and against the Netherlands and to what extent
these operations were affected by its thinking about the enemy. Information about these operations is
available in the archives of the Stasis HVA (foreign intelligence and counterespionage) as well as its
Directorate XX (internal opposition) (Hauptabteilung XXHA XX), and HA I (military intelligence), which are
maintained by the BStU.
[Top of page]

Intelligence Requirements Regarding the Netherlands

According to MfS guideline No. 1/79, the Stasi was to concentrate on the following goals:
neutralizing and combating political-ideological diversion;
gathering military intelligence;
gathering economic intelligence;
counterintelligence. [4]
Under these guidelines, at least five MfS directorates HVA, HA XX, HA I, HA II (counterespionage), and
HA XVIII (economic intelligence and security)ran operations against the Netherlands. Research into
BStU holdings reveals a broad range of topics and targets between 1979 and 1989.
HVA (foreign intelligence) files contain intelligence on:

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NATO-deployment preparations, the AFCENT-headquarters in Brunssum and the Dutch position

in the INF-negotiations;
preparations for East German communist leader Erich Honeckers visit to the Netherlands in June
1987;
activities of the hostile-negative forcesin the Dutch peace movement;
reliability of the employees of the GDR consulate and embassy in the Netherlands;
the microelectronics program of the Philips Corporation;
the Dutch civil and military security service (telephone numbers, organization charts, pictures);
security-related issues, such as activities of right wing groups, and terrorist incidents [5]
HA I (military intelligence) collected material on:
military exercises of the Dutch armed forces;
The Rotterdam harbour;
HA II and HA XVIII were interested in:
operational games by the Dutch security services against the GDR embassy, consulate, and
personnel;
security issues surrounding the embassy compound. [6]
HA XX (internal opposition) files contain most of the more elaborate analyses found in these files. These
mainly regard the:
Dutch peace movement;
contacts between Dutch and East German churches, peace groups, and individuals;
political positions of the Dutch government concerning detente and the East-West conflict.
[Top of page]

Intelligence Assets
East German intelligence in the Netherlands involved the use of open sources (OSINT) and technical and
human collection. OSINT was easy to come by: The Stasi collected newspaper clippings, official
(government) publications, and grey reports on GDR- or security-related issues. The MfS also made
good use of articles on Dutch military and security issues published by Dutch left-wing pacifist
organizations and parties. The Pacifist Political Party, the PSP, for example, exposed details of the
structure and activities of the Dutch security service (the Binnenlandse VeiligheidsdienstBVD). These
were immediately analyzed and sent to Berlin. [7]
With respect to technical collection, little is known from the existing files. There is some evidence that the
MfS made use of Dutch radio and telecommunications, including those of Dutch military radio and
satellite installations in Westerbork and Eibergen. [8]
Humint was the Stasis main source for West-Arbeit in the Netherlands. Before the Dutch officially
recognized the GDR in January 1973, the HVA made use of the handful of salesmen and church officials
who had established contacts in the Netherlands. Because of the proximity of the two countries, these socalled headquarters operations were relatively easy to set up. According to a former Dutch intelligence
officer, most of the West-Arbeit against the Netherlands was conducted through headquarters operations.
The agents participating in those operations could be East Germans, but sometimes they had Dutch
backgrounds. According to the same Dutch intelligence officer, most East German headquarters
operations used Dutch citizens who eventually were doubled by the BVD, [9] New Stasi files suggest this
is not the case.
From 1973 on, political and economic relations also provided up-to-date information. However, the MfS
was especially interested in non-governmental relations between protestant church congregations and
peace groups in both countries. Around 1978, some 100 parish contacts had been established, and by
1984 the number had grown to more than 150. By then, 9,000 to 12,000 Dutch protestants and peace
activists were participating in exchange programs. [10]

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Diplomatic recognition also enabled the MfS to place at least three legal intelligence officers at its
residentura in the embassy. [11] Although the BVD kept the GDR embassy under strict surveillance, the MfS
residentura was able to run several informal-agent operations from the embassy. The records reveal that
the following assets were recruited in the Netherlands (through headquarters operations or by legal
residents):
Three informal agents in the Dutch-East German Friendship Association (a subdivision of the
official Liga fr Vlkerfreundschaft)
One informal agent and one prospective agent from the Horizontal Platform, a Marxist-Leninist
offshoot of the Dutch Communist Party.
Several contact persons (not quite informal agents but something less committed) inside the
Stop-the-Neutron-Bomb campaign and other left wing peace groups.
At least two informal agents not affiliated with left wing organizations, but recruited because they
sought adventure or had financial needs.
The MfS was not allowed to recruit members of the official Dutch Communist Party (they could only be
used as contact persons, not as informal agents). Most informal agents and other sources were
nevertheless drawn into its service through their sympathy for communist ideals or through their
progressive political convictions, as Stasi chief Erich Mielke phrased it. As late in the Cold War as
September 1988, the resident was complaining about the large number of Dutch citizens who were
showing up at the embassy to offer themselves to the service. [12]
On the whole, informal agents like these volunteers were of limited utility as sources. The members of the
Friendship Association (the informal agents Aorta, Arthur, and Ozon, for example) or members of
other GDR-affiliated organizations were either too old, unemployed, or too suspect to get anywhere near
interesting military or political information. The resident came to the same conclusion: Their assets were
too leftist and attempts to broaden the contact scope did not produce many results, he lamented in
1988. [13]
[Top of page]

Stasi Success Stories

However, on at least three occasions the MfS did run successful operations over longer periods of time:
on military intelligence, on the Dutch peace movement, and against a group of Dutch draft resisters with
East German contacts.
[Top of page]

Military Reconnaissance Abruf

The MfS was first of all interested in political and military intelligence on the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization, the main enemy of the Warsaw Pact. Within pact collection arrangements, the GDR was
responsible for collecting intelligence concerning the areas associated with NATO Army Group North and
Army Group Central. The HVA, with 4,000 members, and the military intelligence service of the East
German Army, with 2,000 members, were responsible for carrying out these operations. West Germany,
Great Britain, France, the Benelux and Denmark were defined as principal objectives.
Fulfilling this aim in the Netherlands meant gathering early warning about NATO preparations and
securing information about the order of battle and military dispositions. In addition to the targets listed
above, HVA was also interested in Dutch military compounds and in the Schiphol and Zestienhoven
airports. [14]
The BVD, however, proved a formidable adversary for the HVA. Intensive Dutch surveillance turned the
residentura in The Hague into little more than a shelter for underemployed case officers. HVA security
reports from 1984 on regularly record Stasi suspicions that the BVD was using its connections in the
Dutch media to publicize acts of espionage conducted by the socialist states. Ironically, these complaints
(partially justified, as we shall see) were triggered by concern in Dutch conservative circles that Warsaw
Pact countries were trying to infiltrate and manipulate the countrys peace movement. Politicians asked
questions in Parliament, and the Home Office felt compelled to increase security measures.

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According to the MfS residentura in The Hague, the BVD conducted so many unfriendly acts of
surveillance and recruiting activities against the embassy, against East German citizens in the
Netherlands, and against friendly organizations, such as the Friendship Association GDR-Netherlands
(Vriendschapsvereniging Nederland-DDR), that they threatened to obstruct the positive effect of the
socialist detente politics concerning disarmament questions. That is, the Stasi blamed the BVD for
deteriorating East-West relations and troubled disarmament talks. [15]
However, at least one Dutch informal agent of the 1980s, whose codename was Abruf (on call) was not
discovered. Abruf was run by a case officer codenamed Hilmar, who was a member of the legal
residentura of the military intelligence department of the East German Army and worked in close
cooperation with the MfS staff at the East German embassy. Hilmar had recruited Abruf in November 1983
at a meeting of the Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN) that he, as a comrade and embassy
official, could legally attend.
Hilmar described Abruf as young, unemployed, unhappy with the perceived rightist policies of the Dutch
government, frustrated by the NATO-modernization decision, and a staunch supporter of communism.
Hilmar played into this zeal and general disaffection with the capitalist environment and had no difficulty
recruiting the young man. [16]
As his codename implied, Abruf was used as a freelance agent. He received instructions to photograph
Rotterdam Harbor, the Schiphol and Zestienhoven airports, industrial plants in the region, and military
compounds. He also collected material on NATO Exercise REFORGER in 1985. After 1985, he was told to
move to Woensdrecht, a site then being prepared to receive new NATO missiles.
Abruf received payments of 100 Dutch guilders for every task he carried out. Contact with his case officer
was made through dead drops and in short meetings (after long, frantic diversions and smoke screens)
in crowded places, such as the Jungerhans department store in Rotterdam. To some of these
rendezvous he brought his girlfriend. [17]
Abrufs employment ended after three years, in 1986, after an assignment in 1985 raised suspicions. In
that year, he was ordered to Coevorden, Ter Apel, and Vriezenveen, where he was told to locate military
depots, and to Woensdrecht, where he was to photograph the deployment site. On 25 February 1986, the
BVD paid him a visit and asked about the trip to Vriezenveen and about his contacts with the GDR
embassy. The BVD had stumbled across Abruf while they were following Hilmar. At the time, Dutch
security did not seem to know much about Abrufs history and actual activities as an agent. Hilmar had
already been replaced by an MfS case officer codenamed Haupt. The BVD visit alarmed both Abruf and
the residentura, and the relationship was mutually terminated two days after the inquiry.
Informal agent Abruf had provided the Stasi with useful reconnaissance material on Dutch military and
economic capabilities centering around the Rotterdam region. His cover was never really blown, and the
BVD did not uncover his real activities. After 1989, he left the Netherlands and disappeared.
What Abruf provided was typical of the many reports on Dutch military matters, sometimes via open
sources, sometimes of obscure origin, found in Stasi files. One of the showpieces is a detailed
description of the organizational structuretelephone numbers includedof the intelligence department
of the Dutch land forces. [18]
[Top of page]

The Stasi and the Dutch Peace Movement

Files unearthed in the BStU archives also provide insight into another type of intelligence activity, covert
influence operations. The Stasi focused in the late 1970s and 1980s on the Dutch peace movement and
churches and invested heavily in them and selected leaders. Ironically, the East Germans would find their
efforts turned against them as circumstances in Europe and the Soviet Union changed with the
introduction of perestroika and other reforms in the region.
East German interest in the Dutch peace movement and its church grew out of West European and Dutch
opposition to the planned modernization and expansion of NATOs intermediate range ballistic and cruise
missiles in Western Europe in 1977. By the early 1980s, hundreds of thousands of Dutch people would
demonstrate to attempt to force the government to postpone or cancel the deployments.

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The opposition spawned new opportunities for Soviet and Warsaw Pact leaders, and the official
communist World Peace Council and its suborganizations were used to wage open and covert
campaigns to capitalize on the protests. [19] Between 1977 and 1979, the ruling East German Socialist
Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei DeutschlandsSED) and the peace council were responsible,
among other things, for financial and logistic support of the Stop the Neutron Bomb campaigna Dutch
communist front organization that cost East Berlin around 120,000 Dutch guilders (110,000 West German
DM). [20]
In addition, the Stasi influenced the foundation Generals for Peacea well known and respected antinuclear peace organization of former West European generals, with Dutch General Michiel von Meyenfeldt
(former chief of the Dutch Royal Military Academy) as secretary. To support its perspectives, the Stasi gave
it 100,000 West German DM annually. [21]
Even more potentially useful, it seemed to the Kremlin and East Berlin, was the expansion of the support
base of the peace movement in the Netherlands to include churches and the Dutch Interchurch Peace
Council (Interkerkelijk VredesberaadIKV), which had started a campaign for unilateral atomic
disarmament in the Netherlands. All influential Dutch churches participated in the IKV, and the
organization succeeded in mobilizing large parts of Dutch society. [22] East German leader Erich
Honecker believed that the Dutch religious powers were the main cause of turning the anti-nuclear
campaign into a mass movement, [22] and invitations would follow to a variety of church officials to visit
like-minded groups in East Germany.
However, Stasi sympathy for the Dutch peace movement started to turn sour after 1981. After Polish
government repression of the independent trade union Solidarity in Poland and after exchanges with
members of the Czechoslovak dissident group Charter 77, the IKV radically altered its positions and
began to target not only NATO missiles but those of the Warsaw Pact and demanded that all member
countries start dismantling nuclear missiles on their own territories rather than pointing fingers at other
nations. In effect, this meant the end of a purely anti-NATO campaign. [23]
(/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no1/images/Green%20leaflet_Cropped.jpg/image.jpg)

(/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no1/images/Green%20leaflet_Cropped.jpg/image.jpg)
A leaflet of the IKV illustrating the cooperation betw een it and East German and Hungarian organizations.

(/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no1/images/Green%20leaflet_Cropped.jpg/image.jpg)
To make matters worse for the communists, the IKV extended its contacts with dissidents throughout
Eastern Europe and declared that repression in the East was a major political cause of the arms race
and not the other way around. The IKV planned to organize a peace movement from below to confront
b oth superpowers at grassroot levels. [24]
With its change of position, extant church contacts within the GDR became especially interesting for the
IKVand troublesome to the MfS. Most inviting was an independent peace movement that appeared in
East German protestant churches in 1978 called Swords Into Plowshares (Schwerter zu Pflugscharen).
The IKV followed up and sent emissaries to various peace groups in the GDRas tourists, or under the
umbrella of church exchangesand eventually announced the formation of a joint Peace Platform with
East German dissidents in the summer of 1982.

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The Stasi read about the development in a Dutch newspaper and went on red alert. Honecker himself
ordered the official state Secretariat for Religious Matters (Staatssekretariat fr Kirchenfragen) to exert all
means of influence to eliminate these divisive forces (Spalterkrfte). [25]
A four-part campaign against the IKV was begun. First, the Stasi activated its church agents to force the
abandonment of the platform. [26] Second, it started a smear campaign against the IKV. IKV Secretary
Mient Jan Faber and other officials of his group were registered as persons of criminal intent. [27] Party
and state officials, newspapers and front organizations were instructed to depict the IKV as a divisive force
within the West European peace movement and Faber as an arrogant bully. [28] Third, Faber himself was
barred from entering the GDR. [29] And finally , the existing contacts between Dutch reformed parishes and
East German congregations were threatened. The Dutch working group within the East German churches
was told that the obstructions were caused by the states misgivings about the IKV. Several visits of Dutch
delegations to East Germany and vice versa were cancelled. [30]
These measures were informed by the strategy of differentiation (Differenzierung), which was a very
subtle method of alienating divisive and negative elements from their own base. [31] The Stasi sorted out
which IKV and church members disliked Faber and invited them to East Berlin. It succeeded in
manipulating the president of the IKV and reformed church official Jan van Putten, General von Meyenfeldt
he was also an advisor to the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and a board member of the IKV
and lower-ranking IKV members. [32] IKV officials, Dutch church groups and journalists were led to believe
that the IKVs secretary was no longer in favour in East Europe or with the protestant churches in the GDR.
[33]

(/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no-1/images/stasiaktefaber_cropped.jpg/image.jpg)

(/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no1/images/stasi-aktefaber_cropped.jpg/image.jpg)
A page from the file of Mient Han Faber.

(/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no1/images/stasi-aktefaber_cropped.jpg/image.jpg)
In line with this strategy, the Stasi also tried to recruit agents in the Netherlands. IKV Secretary Janneke
Houdijk, IKVs coordinator for East Germany, was approached in vain. She did not recognise the
attempts for what they were and remained loyal to Faber. [34]
In the end, however, the efforts bore fruit. East-German churches detached themselves from their IKV
contacts and froze most exchange activities. In the Netherlands, many Dutch church leaders and local
groups were convinced that Faber was a threat to stability and East-West relations. [35] Faber was
threatened with dismissal. Local IKV groups and parishes sent angry letters to IKV headquarters and
demanded that Faber stop meddling in internal East German affairs, let alone lead a campaign for
human rights. [36] The envisaged Peace Platform never came into being, frustrated in advance by the
Stasi, which was helped, knowingly or unknowingly, by Dutch and East German church leaders.
Ironically, after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union, Marxist-Leninist enmity towards a
democratization approach faded away. The new leadership in the Kremlin even developed sympathy for it,
and, in 1988, Faber and British peace activist Mary Kaldor were invited to Moscow to observe the
dismantling of SS-20 rockets. The same year, an IKV delegation visited Moscow, invited by the Kremlin
itself. [37] The GDR, however, stuck to its rigid policy. The Stasi was appalled by the tolerance of Soviet
communists toward Dutch peace activists and did not adapt itself to the new liberalism. Indeed, it
continued the struggle against the IKV and even started a new action against it in 1988. Operations were
only aborted after the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989.

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[Top of page]

Operation Bicycle Tour

Groups other than the IKV tried to establish exchange programs with East German peace activists, and in
doing so generated a Stasi response that illustrates the entanglement of foreign and domestic
intelligence activity in East Germany. In 1981, a group of draft resisters from the northern Dutch city of
Groningen founded an organization called the Peace Shop (Vredeswinkel). The entity functioned as a
communication centre for peace activists from the region. Through existing church contacts and the War
Resisters International, the leaders soon contacted a construction branch of the East German army
known as the Bausoldaten, that had since 1964 been offering the possibility of completing obligatory
military service not with arms but with the spade. This alternative had been provided at the urging of East
German protestant churches, which represented about 45 percent of the GDRs population.
As a grass roots organization, the Peace Shop organized bicycle tours through East Germany as a joint
venture of Dutch, East German, and, when possible, Czechoslovak and Polish conscientious objectors.
The Dutch entered the GDR as private visitors, gathered at prearranged addresses, and, with East
Germans, cycled to rural parts of the GDR and discussed world politics and disarmament initiatives. [38]
In 1985, IKV Secretary Faber and East German Vicar Rainer Eppelmann (a prominent figure in the East
German opposition scene) concluded a personal contract to work together for peace. Many participants in
the Groningen-GDR exchange decided to do the same and committed themselves to not using violence
against each other in case of a war. According to the signatories, in doing this, they contributed to detente
from below. [39]
Although their activities were relatively low-profile and not aimed at threatening the GDR system, the cycle
tours were betrayed by their own success as the Stasi got wind of them. Large international groups
peddling, for example, from Karl Marx City (Chemnitz) to Stralsund, could not stay unnoticed, especially
after their frequency increased to three or four times a year.
Veterans of the Bausoldaten were suspect to begin with in the eyes of the MfS, especially when they
organized meetings with other Bausoldaten and Western draft resisters. Indeed, the Stasi had been
carrying out operations against the idea of social peace service as an alternative to military service since
at least 1981. [40] (Vicar Eppleman, in fact, had been a leader in the social peace service effort.)
HA XX, the department charged with dealing with the churches and opposition circles, learned that Dutch
participants planned to publish stories about their bicycle tours and experiences in the GDR in Dutch
church and peace magazines, and, in 1984, Peace Shop members initiated a letter campaign on behalf
of Amnesty International for the release of arrested East German dissidents. [41]
(/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no1/images/PeaceTreaty.jpg/image.jpg)

(/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no1/images/PeaceTreaty.jpg/image.jpg)
A member of the Peace Shop in Groningen and an East German dissident exchange personal peace treaties.

(/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no1/images/PeaceTreaty.jpg/image.jpg)
Such activity fit perfectly in the communist vision of class enemies conspiring from outside the system to

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create domestic unrest, and the bicycle tours thus became objects of intensive surveillance. In 1983, the
Stasi started several Operative Vorgange (intelligence operations aimed at arresting dissidents) against
former Bausoldaten who had participated in the tours. HA XX recruited several East Germans as informal
agents mit Feindkontakt (in contact with the enemy), who reported on all the meetings and preparations.
[42]

Although bicycle tour participants kept their distance from IKV officials, HA XX and the HVA nevertheless
increasingly suspected them of being partners of the IKV and executors of the IKVs grand strategy of
developing a pseudopacifist, bloctranscending peace movement. By way of confirmation of this, one
Stasi report quotes a Dutch activist as saying When there are no soldiers on both sides, there will be no
weapons used. [43]
In the belief that the Peace Shop was helping dissidents, the Stasi was not mistaken. The activists had
indeed given their East German contacts a typewriter and helped finance Bausoldaten activities with
2,000 Dutch guilders.
With growing Dutch contacts in the so-called Political Underground Forces (Politische Untergrundttigkeit
PUT), which the East German authorities saw as a threat to communist rule, increased international
pressure on the GDR, and a perceived potential for embarrassment during Erich Honeckers planned
June 1987 visit to the Netherlands, the MfS tried to obstruct and manipulate cross-border exchanges. HA
XX began an Operativer Vorgang against the Dutch organizer of the bicycle tours, Bert Noppers, who was
described as the inspirator and organisator of the PUT tours.
(/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no1/images/CardboardWall.jpg/image.jpg)

(/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no1/images/CardboardWall.jpg/image.jpg)
Demonstrators by a cardboard "Berlin Wall" built through Groningen in 1987.

(/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no1/images/CardboardWall.jpg/image.jpg)
As part of its attack on Noppers, HA XX used a letter from Noppers to an East German friend in which he
wrote that Dutch intelligence had tried to recruit him in 1983 to report on his East German contacts.
Although Noppers stated in his letter that he refused, the HA immediately listed him as a probable foreign
intelligence agent. It then attempted to collect evidence to indict Noppers for hostile agitation against the
East German state and for disseminating information to foreign intelligence agencies or other foreign
organizations to discredit the GDR. If convicted, he faced two to 12 years of imprisonment. [44]
Nothwithstanding such threats, the Peace Shop organized a protest against East German border controls
in 1987, building a model Berlin Wall of cardboard boxes through Groningen and drawing media attention
to the condition of their dissident friends in the GDR. Although the peace activists also criticized the West
European and Dutch contribution to the armaments race, these acts had no impact on the activities of
HA XX. [45]
(/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no1/images/Vredeswinkel.jpg/image.jpg)
Stepped-up HA XX activities included the recruitment as informal agents of three GDR participants in the
Peace Shop exchanges. Codenamed Karlheinz, Betty, and Romeo, they reported all of their activities to
HA XX. Romeo was sent abroad to visit the Peace Shop in Groningen in July 1988. However, the
department could not find enough evidence to prosecute the East German participants or arrest the Dutch
organizer.
Even by the standards of the East German Penal Code, the activists were just not subversive enough. The

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(/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no1/images/Vredeswinkel.jpg/image.jpg)
The Peace Shop, on the corner, in Groningen.

(/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no1/images/Vredeswinkel.jpg/image.jpg)
Dutch activists did not advocate open criticism or revolution. As Noppers put it during an interview in 2006,
If the East Germans wanted to topple the regime, they had to do it by themselves. We came from abroad
and did not want to tell them what to do. And although we were no friends of communism, we had enough
criticism to pass on capitalism and materialism at home. [46] Moreover, the East German government did
not want the MfS to make random arrests, since that would cause too much damage to the economic and
political relations the GDR had established by then.
Nevertheless, MfS surveillance continued. HA XX ordered continuation of the operations against Noppers,
inspired by the same suspicions against the Dutch activist. [47] Although the MfS knew that Moscow had
shifted policies and now aimed at cooperation with the IKV and other West European peace
organisations, HA XX was still plotting in April 1989 to use intercepted inquiries by the Peace Shop to
members of the East German network to recruit more informal agents. [48]
Only in October 1989 were the Operativer Vorgange against the East German Bausoldaten and against
Noppers called off. They ended partly because of a lack of evidence and partly because the Stasi had
already begun cleaning up its files in the face of growing unrest and pending revolution. On 24 November
1989, 15 days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Stasi finally closed its files on Noppers. [49]
[Top of page]

In Sum: Tactical Gains, Strategic Loss

During the last decade of its existence, the MfS was successful in tactical terms. It succeeded in running
one operation to collect military intelligence, managed to infiltrate and manipulate most IKV contacts in the
GDR, penetrated the Peace Shop, and started an Operativ Vorgang against the Dutch coordinator of East
European peace tours. Moreover, there is reason to believe that the MfS employed more Dutch informal
agents in the 1980s than are discussed here but whose records remain undiscovered.
In the overall, strategic setting, however, the Ministry of State Security failed in its mission to preserve the
security of the GDR.
First, by entangling its foreign intelligence operations with domestic security interests, the Stasi
focused on the foreign inspiration of domestic opposition at the expense of understanding that
dissent in the GDR drew on the systems own economic, social, military, and political
weaknesses and the governments abuses of its population.
Second, the MfS itself became part of the problem instead of part of the solution, as the expansion
of the security apparatus from the 1970s on acted as a driver for even more protests.
Third, activities of the IKV and other Dutch peace initiatives like the Peace Shop were blown up out
of proportion, and those in the GDR who were in touch with them were deemed to be guilty of high
treason. In this intellectual strait-jacket, the Stasi was blinded to useful insights and could not see
that the Dutch movements gave the Soviet bloc opportunities to exploit genuine divisions in NATO.
Finally, when the Stasi got it right, it could not persuade its leadership. In May 1987, the HVA issued an
study of Dutch foreign and military politicies before Honeckers state visit to the Netherlands. The analysis
precisely listed the deviations of Dutch politics from the US and NATO lines. (The Dutch denounced SDI,
favoured a nuclear test ban and prolongation of the ABM treaty.) Honecker, however, made no effort to play

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into these differences and only uttered the usual clichs about peace-loving socialist countries. To him,
the Netherlands remained part and parcel of the imperialist block. [50] Painfully collected and sound
intelligence was made useless by incapable and ideologically deformed party leaders.
[Top of page]

Footnotes
a. The BStU (Die Beauftrgte fr die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen
Deutschen Demokratischen Republik) is responsible for preserving the records of the Stasi, which had
responsibility for both external and internal security. The files on Kohl suggested he had taken bribes from
major firms on behalf of his party, the Christian Democratic Union. The BStUs functions are described on
its Web site, www.bstu.bund.de.
b. Knabes 1999 study was reviewed by CIA historian Ben Fischer in Studies in Intelligence 46, no. 2
(2002). It offers a useful overview in English of East German intelligence.
~~~~~~

1. Gauck-Behrde iritiert ber Aufgeregtheit im Westen um Stasi-Akten, in Magdeburger Volksstimme,

28 April 2000.
2. Hubertus Knabe, Die unterwanderte Republik. Stasi im Westen (Berlin, 1999); Helmut Mller-Enbergs,
Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter des Ministeriums fr Staatssicherheit. Teil 2: Anleitungen fr Arbeiten mit Agenten,
Kundschaftern und Spionen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Berlin, 1998); Mller-Enbergs, Die
Erforschung der West-Arbeit des MfS, in Suckut und Weber (eds.), Stasi-Akten, 24069; Joachim Lampe,
Juristische Aufarbeitung der Westspionage des MfS. Eine vorlufige Bilanz. BF informiert Nr. 24 (BStU,
Berlin, 1999).
3. Eva Horn, Das wissen vom Feind. Erkenntnis und Blindheid von Geheimdiensten, in Wolbert K.
Schmidt, et al., Geheimhaltung und Transparanez. Demokratische Kontrolle der Geheimdienste im
internationalen Vergleich
(Berlin, 2007), 25777. Here: 259.
4. Jens Gieseke, Annherungen und Fragen an die Meldungen aus der Republik, in idem (ed.),
Staatssicherheit und Gesellschaft. Studien zum Herrschaftsalltag in der DDR (Gttingen 2007), 7998,
here: 8990.
5. Vgl. Query in the SIRA database 14, Druckauftrag Nr. 12839, AR 7/SG03, Nr. AU 2585/05 Z.
6. HA XVIII, Plne und Massnahmen feindlicher Geheimdienste gegen Auslandsvertretungen und
langfriestige Delegierungskader der DDR im nichtsozialistischen Ausland im Jahre 1985. BStU MfS HA
XVIII, 3233.
7. Vorgangsanalyse zum Vorgang Aorta, 15 July 1986; Aufgabenstellung AA 1986. Fortschreibung der
Sicherheigsanalyse Haupt, 1 March 1986; Information ber die ndl. Sicherheitsdienste. Auswertung der
Broschre De BVD en de Inlichtingendiensten, Hrsg. by PSP, Amsterdam 1983, 1984. BStU MfS HA I
1682, 2528; 9094; 12729.
8. For example Jahresabschlussbericht 1981 ber die Ergebnisse der Funkabwehrttigkeit,16
November 1981, in which West German, British and Dutch radiocommunications are mapped. BStU MfS
HA II 25043, 139.
9. Frits Hoekstra, In dienst van de BVD. Spionage en contraspionage in Nederland (Amsterdam, 2004).
See also Dick Engelen, Frontdient. De BVD in de Koude Oorlog (Amsterdam, 2007).
10. Beatrice de Graaf, Over de Muur. De DDR, de Nederlandse kerken en de vredesbeweging
(Amsterdam, 2004), or De Graaf, ber die Mauer. Die DDR, die niederlndischen Kirchen und die
Friedensbewegung (Mnster, 2007)
11. RoD Den Haag, Fortschreibung der Sicherheitanalyze zur RoD im Ausbildungsjahr 1987/1988, 11
November 1988. BStU HA I, 1682: 710.

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12. HA I 1682, S. 11.

13. RoD Den Haag, Fortschreibung der Sicherheitanalyze zur RoD im Ausbildungsjahr 1987/1988, 11
November 1988. BStU HA I, 1682: 710.
14. Information ber die Streitkrfte der Niederlande, nr. 46/88, 27 January 1988. BStU MfS HA XVIII 91:
20215; Information ber den militrischen Beitrag der Niederlande zu den Streitkrften der NATO, 29
May
1987. BStU MfS HVA 47: 6079.
15. Telegrams and reports to MfS headquarters from The Hague: 21 March 1984, 18 January 1989, 31
March 1989, security report Fortschreibung der Sicherheitsanalyse zur Rod im Ausbildungsjahr
1987/1988 of 18 November 1988. BStU, MfS HA I 1682: 111.
16. Several reports on IM Abruf by Haupt and other MfS-personnel. BStU MfS HA I 1682: 29163.
17. Hilmar, Zum Einsatz in den NL, 1985; Sicherheitsanalyse zum Vorgang AM-V Abruf, 31 January
1986. BStU MfS HA I 1682: 5863, 8184.
18. Angaben zum Nachrichtendienst der Streitkrfte der NL, insbesondere der Landstreitkrfte, 4 June
1985, Den Haag. BStU MfS HA I 1682: 3952.
19. Peter Volten, Brezhnevs Peace Program. Success or Failure? Soviet Domestic Political Process and
Power. Academisch Proefschrift (Emmen, 1981).
20. Letter, Hans van der Velde (secretary of the National Committee Initiatief Internationale Stafette) to
the East German Peace Council, Amsterdam, 12 July 1979; Letter Kurt Hlker (deputy secretary-general
of the Peace Council) to Hans van der Velde, Berlin, 7 August 1979. Both at Bundesarchiv Stiftung
Arbeiterparteien und Massenorganisationen der ehemaligen DDR (thereafter BArch SAPMO), DZ 9
463.2411; Carel Horstmeier, Stop de Neutronenbom! The last mass-action of the CPN and the MoscowBerlin-Amsterdam triangle, in Carel Horstmeier etal (eds.), Around Peter the Great: Three Centuries of
Russian-Dutch Relations (Groningen 1997), 6577.
21. De Graaf, Over de Muur, 113; Jochen Staadt, Die SED und die Generale fr den Frieden, in Jrgen
Maruhn and Manfred Wilke (eds.), Die verfhrte Friedensbewegung, 123140.
22. East German Peace Council, Information, 22 March 1978, 1, 6, 11, BArch SAPMO DZ 9 463.2411;
Neue Zeit, 2 July 1979. East German Peace Council, Manahmeplan, February 1981, 2, BArch SAPMO
DZ 9 450.2354.
23. Jan Willem Honig, Defense Policy in the North Atlantic Alliance. The Case of the Netherlands (London:
Westport, 1993), 21112; Ronald Jeurissen, Peace and Religion: An Empirical-Theological Study of the
Motivational Effects of Religious Peace Attitudes on Peace Action (Kampen, 1993), 47; Philip Everts,
Public Opinion, the Churches and Foreign Policy: Studies of Domestic Factors in the Making of Dutch
Foreign Policy (Leiden, 1983); Jrgen Maruhn and Manfred Wilke, eds., Die verfhrte Friedensbewegung:
Der Einflu des Ostens auf die Nachrstungsdebatte (Mnchen: 2002); Udo Baron, Kalter Krieg und
heisser Frieden. Der Einfluss der SED und ihrer westdeutschen Verbndeten auf die Partei Die Grnen
(Mnster 2003).
24. Mient Jan Faber, Brief van het IKV-secretariaat aan alle IKV-kernen over Polen kort na 13 december
1981, in: Faber et al. (eds.), Zes jaar IKVcampagne (Den Haag, 1983), 13334; Open letter of Charter 77
to the Interchurch Peace Council, 17 August 1982. BArch SAPMO DZ 9 585.2879.
25. Report of Hauptabteilung XX (HA XX) for the Stellvertreter des Ministers, Genossen Generalleutnant
Mittig, Negative Aktivitten von Personen des Interkirchlichen Friedensrates (IKV) der Niederlande, 9
August 1982,
BStU MfS HA XX ZMA 1993/5, 3437, 5657.
26. Report of the HA XX/4 (Stasidepartment for church and opposition matters), Subversive Aktivitten
kirchlicher Personen der Niederlande, 15 June 1982, BStU MfS HA XX ZMA 1993/5, 2122; Letter,
Christoph Demke (Office of the East German Church Organisation) to Staatssekretr fr Kirchenfragen,
Klaus Gysi, 9 August 1982, Berlin, Sekretariat 3827-1632/82, Rep. B3 Nr. 711, Archive KPS Magdeburg.
27. BStU MfS HA XX AKG-VSH. ZAIG 5. SLK 10964. ZPDB 2082010579. Erfassungsnr. 40438/1590/1993;
HA XX AKG-VSH. ZAIG 5 1009. SLK 10994. ZPDB 2082010587. ZMA 3420/19931580. VSH-Karteikarten
are register

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cards, not a file. In June 1982 Stasi started an Operativ Vorgang (file) on Mient Jan Faber and Wolfgang
Mller.
28. Report of the HA XX/4, Interkirchlicher Friedensrat der Niederlande, October/November 1982, BStU
MfS HA XX/4 1917, 15; In the mid-1980s, IKV was mentioned in a list of approximately 1,000 Zielobjekte
(targets) of
the Stasis Reconnaissance Service, the Hauptverwaltung Aufklrung. Zielobjekte der HVA alphabetische Liste, BStU ASt Gera BV Gera/Abt. XV 0187, 2139, in Knabe, West-Arbeit des MfS, 518
54. See 537.
29. Vertreter hollndischer Friedensbewegung drfte nicht in die DDR, ADN-Information, 29 July 1982,
BStU MfS HA XX ZMA 1993/4, 13.
30. Office of the East German Churches (BEK-Sekretariat), Arbeitsbeziehungen zwischen dem Bund der
Ev. Kirchen in der DDR und dem Raad van Kerken in den Niederlanden und einzelnen Gliedkirchen und
Gemeinden,
November 1982, LDC NHK ROS 735.
31. Clemens Vollnhals, Die kirchenpolitische Abteilung des Ministeriums fr Staatssicherheit. BF
informiert 16/1997 (Berlin 1997). Concerning the strategy of differentiation, the following orders were
relevant: Richtlinien zur Bearbeitungs Operativer Vorgnge (RL 1/76), Operative Personenkontrollen (RL
1/81), Direktive zur IM-Fhrung (RL 1/79).
32. East German Peace Council, Manahmeplan, Berlin, April 1981, 4, BArch SAPMO DZ 9 K295.1578;
East German Peace Council, Aktivitten der Rstungsgegner im Monat November 1981, Niederlande,
23, BArch
SAPMO DZ 9 450.2354.
33. E.g., Ton Crijnen, Waarom Mient Jan Faber niet welkom is in de DDR, De Tijd, 31 December 1982.
34. BStU MfS Abteilung Rostock, OV Integration 3/92.
35. Verslag van uitspraken van bisschop W. Krusche op de bijeenkomst met de Raad van Kerken te
Amersfoort d.d. 7-9-82, Series 3, Nr. 32, Utrecht County Archive, Reformed Churches in the Netherland,
General Diaconal
Council (Het Utrechts Archief, Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland, Algemeen Diakonaal Beraad); Letter,
Prof. Berkhof to Vorsitzender des Bundes der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR (Krusche), 26 Juy 1982,
Amersfoort,
Rep. B3 Nr. 711, Archive KPS Magdeburg; Letter, Prof. Berkhof to Faber, 2 July 1982, Amersfoort, LDC
NHK ROS/IKV Box 15.
36. All letters at the (Dutch) International Institute for Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam, Box IKV 455;
Verslag Oost-Europadiscussie op de Campagneraad van 26 februari, in Kernblad 3, March 1983, IISH
Box IKV 453.
37. Interview with Mient Jan Faber, 10 September 2001, The Hague.
38. Interview with Bert Noppers (former participant in these contacts and supporter of the Peace Shop), 20
March 2006, Utrecht.
39. Network News, in: Peace Magazin, 1 (December 1985): 1, 30.
40. Uwe Koch, Das Ministerium fr Staatssicherheit, die Wehrdienstverweigerer der DDR und die
Bausoldaten der Nationalen Volksarmee. Eine bersicht ber den Forschungsstand. Die
Landesbeauftragte fr die Unterlagen des
Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR in Sachsen-Anhalt und Mecklenburg- Vorpommern,
Sachbeitrge 6 (Magdeburg 1999); Robert-Havemann- Archiv (ed.), Zivilcourage und Kompromiss,
Bausoldaten in der DDR 1964 1990, Bausoldatenkongress Potsdam, 3.-5. September 2004 (Berlin
2005).
41. Vredeswinkel Groningen, Schrijf een brief!!!!![write a letter!!!!!], around January 1984. Matthias
Domaschk Archive Berlin, Box Erik de Graaf.
42. OV Schwaben. BStU MfS BV Frankfurt (Oder) AOP 1430/89; Abteilung XX/4, Information ber
feindlich-negative Aktivitten zur Organisierung und Inspirierung politischer Untergrundttigkeit, Frankfurt
(Oder), 22 March 1985. BStU MfS OV Radtour, 1091/87, Anlage I, 8486.

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43. OV Schwaben. BStU MfS BV Frankfurt (Oder) AOP 1430/89; Abteilung XX/4, Information ber
feindlich-negative Aktivitten zur Organisierung und Inspirierung politischer Untergrundttigkeit, Frankfurt
(Oder), 22 March 1985. BStU MfS OV Radtour, 1091/87, Anlage I, 85.
44. Abteilung XX/4, Erffnungsbericht zum OV Radtour, Frankfurt (Oder) 3 September 1987. BStU MfS
OV Radtour, 1091/87, Anlage I, 712.
45. Abteilung IX/2, Strafrechtliche Einschtzung zum operativen Ausgangsmaterial Radtour der
Abteilung XX, Frankfurt (Oder) 10 September 1987. BStU MfS OV Radtour 1091/87, Anlage I, 2223.
46. Interview with Bert Noppers, 20 March 2006, Utrecht.
47. Abteilung XX/4, Sachstandbericht zum OV Radtour, 1091/87, Frankfurt (Oder), 22 July 1988. BStU
MfS OV Radtour, 1091/87, Anlage II, 4751.
48. Abteilung XX/4, Dienstreisebericht, Frankfurt (Oder), 20 June 1988; Abteilung XX, Information zur
Ost-West-Gruppe Groningen (Niederlande), Frankfurt (Oder), 5 April 1989. BStU MfS OV Radtour
1091/87, Anlage II, 1821 and 131133.
49. Abteilung XX/4, Abschlussbericht zum operativ-Vorgang Radtour, Reg.nr. V/1091/87, Frankfurt
(Oder), 24 November 1989. BStU MfS OV Radtour, 1091/87, Anlage II, 189192.
50. Information ber aktuelle Aspekte der Auen- und Innenpolitik der Niederlande im Zusammenhang
mit dem offiziellen Besuch des Genossen Honecker vom 3.-5.6.1987, 21 May 1987. BStU MfS HVA 47,
8591.
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